Moving On Each Sunday
by sherlockian-quiet
Summary: Something goes unexpectedly wrong in Sherlock's clockwork life. He finds it necessary to pick apart and deconstruct his own mind to adapt to this event. But with John Watson in his life, he finds that it has grown out of control, like an untended garden, while he was looking the other way. How can he move on?
1. Chapter 1

It was a place, as such. The most beautiful place he had ever seen. This was relative, of course (although must be made explicit to people such as you). The background noise of our lives must be taken into account. For example, if you were raised (I say this loosely) in the Sistine Chapel, you may find it more difficult to appreciate the drab framework of a laboratory ceiling. As do I, of course, and any other soul, but that is another instance: while you may view the tawdry ceiling, with its cancer spots and steam smudges, with a disinterest on par with my fascination with yourself, that is merely due to your inability to observe. One flick of the eyes and then you've seen all you have to see (which is, really, nothing - on par with yourself). I, on the other hand, see everything: and from what I see, I draw dullness in comparison with the wonders fireworking behind my eyes. You will never see the wonders I see, as you are obsessed with seeing rather than shaping your mind to divest wonders from what you see: you do not, in essence, observe.

From his perspective, he would have seen nothing. He would not have seen a man: he would have seen sharing a flat. He would not have seen romance: he would have seen a man. I observed that his posture was rigid, automatically so - but is it possible that he consciously clarified this ramrod-esque pose, to embody heterosexual straightness? If body language could speak, it would go forth in harsh, chequered tones. _We're sharing a flat. Financial endeavours. Can't afford to live by myself, not in London. I'm an idler; need to be in London. All's fair in love and war, and neither is present._

He left that behind in Iraq. Or is it Afghanistan? There is a point at which noise and pressure and vigilance cross the threshold of your heart, doff their hat to the tentative soul who comes to meet you, and then make that poor dear go up in flames. I was able to do it with a mere cigarette lighter - at a well-aimed angle to catapult the drugs into my bloodstream. He, I presume, tossed small, hard balls of explosives into thatched buildings, and watched it roar into scarlet, flickering life. Perhaps he did observe that - observe it enough, at least, to cut himself off from all heart and sympathy in the same manner as slicing his scalpel through a vein. A purple snake like mine, jotted with spots akin to the laboratory ceiling, aflame with cocaine. That fire was doused with the cool intellect and ice of precision that I consider my life's - life? - work. But hearts are warm-blooded, so of course it froze over and died. Collateral benefit.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" Suddenly, his phone was in my hands. How that happened, I do not know. Perhaps I was not observing (a thought composed of folly). (I was filtering.) (I merely filtered out the more advanced thought so that this may be coherent to you.) (There are many kinds of filtering, but fortunately, they occur irrelevant to me, in your brain.) The atmosphere between us was immediately milky, as if the air took on the substance of a blur while everything else remains crystal clear. It may be the effect of his brain, slowly working, struggling to function, an obesity of thought without the fat stripped away through rigorous training. This is the danger of being too close to a human being - in observing their minute movements, in accruing this data and predicting their thought processes, you link in with their (should I taint the word in associating it with that?) mind.

But little did he know that I also saw him as a potential. He was closed off, he was a doctor, he looked as if he listened. Ideas are my only family; those visions clustered within my mind, all in their distinct places, whisper auras of contentment; they say that in finding patterns, the human part of me is fulfilled. Humans are obsessed - albeit poor - at finding patterns. It is not guesswork to suppose that the man superior at finding patterns is, indeed, superior. This man could possibly track symptoms across a body and identify a condition with this pattern - his position as an MD points to this, but assumptions are made here. You cannot fully trust a cluttered mind, and that is all he has (balance of probability). But now I diagnose a pattern across his persona: glazed eyes denoting being closed off as well as terminally dull; an intermittent tremor, a romantic notion considering that his hand is not shaking at all; and a slim mouth with lips touching, inferring (but correct me if I am wrong) the absence of talking - linking, in a shot in the dark, that he has an affinity to listen instead. (Indeed, shots in the dark may be why he has taken on this tendency, as well as that tremor that was almost gleeful to identify.)

It is a beautiful thing indeed - the most beautiful thing I have ever seen - to observe these symptoms, and draw a pattern that derives a fluttery sense in a mind starved for enthusiasm. The pattern found on this man's appearance takes on a colour in my mind that is a shimmering grey, an indeterminate vision of grey matter. It is quietly thrilling to see such an image hesitate in my inner eye, to muse quietly at what it holds. Should I pick it apart? Can I be bothered? A lifetime of waiting for something to completely grasp my concentration has rendered me almost slack in this area. Am I so completely starved for real, comprehensive enthusiasm that I no longer have the strength to go with it? Has years of conjuring farce eagerness to compensate for this lax emptiness skewed notions of what will truly bring vigour… will this man be a disappointment, like everything else (on the planet), in trying to actually _do something_?

He is an MD, an academic, and closed-off, akin to me. Amid times of stress, pressure (albeit an exchange of living conditions), he is calm. And he seems to possess a tendency to listen. Could he be a mirror? A less comprehensive version of myself, a shining surface with nothing beneath, no brain required; simply a reflection to bounce ideas off of, and refine the thoughts so close and dear to me that inhabit my mind? The notion of sharpening the edges on those inner visions, perhaps even seeing something within them, is somewhat intoxicating. Slowly, but surely, there is a thrilling expectation, a warm prospection, humming beneath (but not a part of, I must emphasise) my heart.

Is there crime in trying? That could be a plaintive question to your ears, but it holds a positive connotation to mine. London does need a little more crime. This particular crime may even be interesting. His eyes are opaque without foresight; his cane is at an angle that rarely serves him. He does not gain support from either internal or external instrument, not brain nor cane. Would he hesitate if he could observe what I am, beneath an offer to spare him money and share a flat?

To him, I am a material man. From the fabric of my coat to my role in levering pressure off finances.

His face blurs grey. Is this a symptom? Does he see what I am? Is he afraid, as everyone else is?

No. It is my vision. I look at him, and the world blurs grey. It is beautiful.

* * *

"Who are you?" he asks.

Who am I? Who am I (he asks)? In the present moment, I am too fatigued to check. The faux-leather of the couch dashes in minuscule cracks from my fingers. The butterfly feet of a dust mite settles upon my nose. A moment ago, all was dark and cosy and quiet - the low light of the room was a balm on my mind, like the substance of night - I was almost, actually, sleepy. Not just fatigued beyond reason; not only exhausted from hours of stressed energy; but actually, truly sleepy. My eyelids were almost closed. I prefer it that way, but I rarely put it into practice. That is a routine habit that I share with the common people. This ensued until the door opened and the air changed - the entering man possessed an icy demeanour glazed blue against an oatmeal jumper. Through the dark smattering of eyelashes, I observed his rigid pose, glassy eyes, twitching hand. _Twitching hand._ It twitches. Stills. Jerks. Why is it doing that? A toxic tendril of frustration seeps into the warm ocean in which I am suspended, requiring no breath, seeing no light. Only pools of blue, both of which my eyelids now close over. Abductive reasoning is more challenging than I supposed in this state. I need to breathe; get some oxygen into my brain. Thinking is tedious, breathing is boring, but I need to work fast, figure out why-the-man-has-a-twitching-hand-not-supposed-to-twitch-at-all quickworkitoutidiot—

"The name is Sherlock Holmes," I replied.

 _I don't even know your name._ The laboratory is a glaring white. Unfairly different from the dark cloth threaded through the air at the flat, pressing upon my eyelids in a way I did not protest. I almost blink. The cracks are no longer at my fingers, but upon the roof. Cancer spots and steam smudges, and little spindly cracks branching out from those places. Strange. Strange. Stranger is ahead of me. A man. Standing a ramrod, back stiff-straight, morals stiff-straight, thought process stiff-straight. _We've only just met, and we're going to look at a flat._ We've only just met. We're going to look at a flat. A precarious situation, money hanging in the balance, and his eyes denote me as a materialist man. Is he materialistic for identifying a financially unstable situation as stressful? Because, indeed, his hand is not twitching a bit. It is a stressful situation - _we've only just met - it's unlikely that anything will come of this, but I'll try to play the cards I have -_ but his hand is not twitching. An intermittent tremor, comes and goes, but only at specific times. Twitch. Jerk. Only his words do that. _That's it, then?_ His words jerk me back. Twitch. My eyelids twitch again. I almost blink. But my brain can process all this information. This is not a game - it is child's play. My brain is doing quite fine, thank you very much. I shall not blink. Blinking denotes shock; blinking denotes being caught off guard, being challenged; blinking denotes the inability to process. This man is the opposite to my brain.

The room is white, bright. I hulk over the man, intellectually and physically. He asks who I am; he does not know. His hand does not twitch.

But it comes and goes (at specific times). Now, it is over. The room is dark, shadowy. He looms over my prone form; his brain is unhindered, active, while mine stews in chained passivity. Who am I? He knows; at least, he nurtures his own little, rudimentary image of who he thinks I am. It is better than my own grasp. Who am I? It is over. I do not know.

His hand twitches. It is not a stressful situation. There is no money involved, no materialism. Indeed, my attire is a dressing gown, lying atop a couch split at the seams. There is hardly object for money. Does his intermittent tremor bid hello when it is not stressful? Unlikely; I have not noticed it before (not that my memory is currently in high form). Why is it twitching? Why is it twitching?

Why is he looking at me with a face so grey?


	2. Chapter 2

Sometimes, I wish I could move on.

Move on, from this place and from this time. I wish I could think of tomorrow and then, perhaps, think of tomorrow, simultaneously. I wish I could ponder something in reach and potentially reach out for it. I wish I could, in the sense that I may.

If that were true, I would apply it to my relationship with this man. At the moment, what stretches between us is grey. A sort of grey happening, a grey matter, if you will, shifting and changing between us. How do we walk around each other? How would we treat each other? Who are we, when we are in the same room? There are little fingers slipping and shading in that overcast mass, pushing us gently apart, patiently, timorously. I let them do their job, and I will do mine. So I sit, nestled amid the couch, facing the wall, and I try to think. But grey matter does not solely shroud the air; it finds its way into my own grey matter, the children that I cherish. They sit there in my skull as patiently as I sit and face the bone-like hue of the wall (even its texture is the same; upon my fingers, at least. My tongue, I have not yet experimented upon the wall). And they are cloaked in grey matter, the same grey matter that is a heavy overcoat to me, increasing in density whenever he walks into the room.

Was it a mistake to adopt him as a flatmate? Did I err in placing another soul at intermittent parts in my life (termed casually)? Fortunately, I do not see him as often as I would dislike. He is a private captain, and I am an exclusive recluse, and the dust gathers along the line that neither of us cross.

"Would you like something to eat?" he asks.

"No, thank you," I reply.

At least, in theory. He is sitting, rigid and upright, in an armchair reserved for lounging. I sit, reserved, upon a lounge, steepled fingers beneath my chin. Indeed, what would occur if he offered me sustenance? Never mind. I will endure.

"Would you like something to eat?" he asks.

I do not require food, nor water, nor company. Those fickle things others adore - but it slows them down, oh, it slows them down further in whatever gargantuan pace they may endure upon; but that would not do within this grey matter of mine. Despite any shroud that may blind my way, I shall hit all the checkpoints through process of elimination anyway, and defeat the most clear-eyed pupil. Take this man, for instance, seated merely across the room, only a rugged carpet separating us. A moment ago, his feeble concentration was snagged (upon the surface, as meagre bait attracts starved salmon or rocks, particularly rocks without the liberty of mouths) by the bland black-and-white of both colour and content palleted within his newspaper - but now it rests upon me, and - oh, dear. I have been too slow.

"No, thank you," I reply.

I had rehearsed, fortunately. Although theatre is most decidedly a bloody sport; so many slaughtered lines, as fishing lines slaughter rocks who bleed. No sic, I am afraid. You have taken me in all wrong. You poor seamstress, you; you poor tailor, being so rash, as I tell a tale under much stress. Indeed, I am stressed. This anxiety…

If there was a place to go, I would go there. I would go there immediately, and I would go there, perhaps, now. Is there a place for me? That thought is so oft thought of, yet so private, my stomach clenches as I whisper. For, yes, I do whisper. I whisper with stomach clenched and my hands would be, too, if I could move them. Unfortunately, I cannot, I cannot reach out. I wish I could. I wish I could ponder something, see someplace, and potentially reach out for it. I wish I could reach out for places and reach them; I wish I could reach, oh, I wish I could REACH! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME? HOW COULD THIS OCCUR? Has my life (life? Is this a life?) left and screamed and ruined and shouted and what else is there for me, what else can there be, I can't do a simple thing like get off this couch and do something, anything, why is everyone moving? How can everyone move and work and go to work and do work and oh, I wish I could work, I wish I could reach out and work without this grey MATTER SHROUDING MY BRAIN, SHROUDING BETWEEN US, please, I had a thought and it's gone, I had a thought, I wish I could reach out and grab it I wish I could reach out reach please reach PLEASE but I can't see anything, this grey, I can only see grey, I can only see grey, and it's all grey, and I want to work without my stomach clenching, I want to work without everything burning, I want to work without this grey overcoat freezing in heated density and descending down on me like a shackled straitjacket, all I can see is grey, and grey, and -

Grey. His face is grey. I can see it properly, despite all this grey shroud gathered around us, swelling between us as if pressing against a line of glass from both sides, a window, and I can see him. He is grey.

"Are you okay?"

I am uncertain if I appreciate grey, now.

"Sherlock! You okay?"

Something has changed.

"No, thank you," I reply. "I do not require sustenance."

* * *

This man… this man - I wish he would let me alone. I thought I prided myself on the organisation of my mind, the lubricated passage of my thoughts, dashing nigh and fly from one network to another, but I see that it has come apart now. Untended, untrimmed. Untethered. Perhaps it was never organised in the first place; it may have only been one great illusion, one great expectation, and could one ever live with a mirage like that? I certainly could not. I would not intend to. But this - for the moment, it is all speculation. And where I spectacle spectacular speculation, I find folly. The categorisation of my brain may be an illusion, but I will rely upon it for the time being. I shall lay the facts upon the table and leave the roulette for later. I lay my aces down on the surface of the water, and hope they do not sink.

"Sherlock! What are those on your fingers?"

The cards will be stained, most certainly. You cannot place your aces on a fluid and expect it to come away untarnished. But if only it were not! Fluid thoughts, departing before they arrive, swimming densely, sparsely, with no organisation in sight or mind. I need to pluck a thought from the air, not from the sea. Without organisation - my thoughts would be lost in each other; I would be nothing. I would not be able to live with myself. I would decide not to, in tribute to the illusion of rational thought.

"Are those stains?"

How do you identify a drop in the ocean? Without organisation, I would have to sift through each thought to find the one I yearn for, mourn for. Without organisation, I can no longer dazzle with lightning-fast efficiency; I can no longer machinate abductions that take tenths of seconds. I live in that time frame. I flit between those pockets of time, balancing on those branches, plucking thoughts from the air and winging my way back. But now I have to sift through the ocean with hands. It slips through my fingers. I am wading in cold sweat; a waterfall of ache streams from my brain stem down my spine. Oh, why can I not feel the rush of air against my face - the rush of epiphany on my person? No, rather I must collate thought for thought, with each second that passes an increased pounding in my ears, the rising tide, the pressure of time in which I am not welcome.

"Sherlock! I know you can hear me. Tell me! Quick!"

Quick. I need to be quick. It cuts me to the quick. I cannot sift for a specific thought through the ocean in my brain. I do not possess that kind of endurance. I have spent so long within this dashing pace of thought, with these wings that flit from time pocket to pocket at the speed of light, that I cannot keep up this gargantuan pace. This pace that others adopt, are content with, cannot move beyond. I need to move on. But am I like everyone else? Oh, that cuts me to the quick. I need to be quick. Quick.

"Quick, Sherlock! What's wrong with you? Just tell me what they are!"

"Nicotine… stains," I rasp out, finally. I can feel the water stains soaking the aces; it weighs them down; they sink. The beauty of my organisation, my spectacular mind - it was all just fluid beneath the surface. An illusion. A reflection. I can see myself in it. Can I live with it?

"Smoking?" His voice is soaked with something solid.

I let out a small sigh. It travels across my lower lip in a small, hesitant breath. Slipping away like smoke. Like shadow. The insides of my eyelids slowly come into focus - shadow. Dark. All at once, I realise that I am somewhere. The air presses against my cheek, thick and stuffy. Some acrid weave is laced through it, but so lightly now that the darkness almost negates it. The dimness of my surroundings can be felt, like cushioning, velvet against my heartbroken mind, whispering that breakdowns are okay and inescapable. There is cushioning beneath the icy ache of my spine; leather beneath my fingertips, cracks spiralling from post to post. He summoned me from inside my mind, but I am prey to the familiar notion that I am visiting a playacting place, and itch to return to the real world.

"Yes… smoking," I reply dryly, and not solely on account of a parched larynx. "I wish to… think."

"You can't smoke," he shoots back.

"No." This is true. There was too much fluid in my brain to successfully light it. The smoke remained external, smoky, shadowy, darkness pressing in. But the flame never reached inside; no spark within. It would be extinguished by the sea.

"Sherlock…" His voice falters, a little.

I open my eyes. They slide open with ease, with dazzling ease after all that work and hardship, trying to sift an ocean with two palms. He is nowhere. There is only that fog. That grey fog, swamping my surroundings. How can I identify anything, locate anything, in this? How can I sift through it, slipping through my fingers? How can I organise anything in this?

"Where are you?" I whisper.

"Right here. Right in front of you." His voice is quieter, too.

I pause. Is he worth telling this to? Around me, the fog seems to grow denser, darker; its palms presses against my cheeks with more force. Soon, it may hurt.

"I cannot see you," I breathed. The whisper travels across my lower lip and delves a pocket of air from the fog immediate to my mouth. With a hunger washed of emotion, I snatch a glimpse of unkempt carpet, and a vicarious, squat shoe.

"Try opening your eyes."

This time, it is much more difficult. The departure of organisation, of efficacy, of all I hold most dear to mind, swathes me from strength. My eyelids are leaden with all the hardship and weight and… _work_ that I was suddenly evolving to abhor. How could I not deplore it, when my sluggish subconscious works to associate its tremulous efforts with the trembling heartache from finding all I know awash in fluid and fog? The link between these aching efforts, and the stained memory of what I have lost, seeks to unhinge me. How can I ever face work again, when I am shaken at the thought of opening my eyes? I cannot work. I cannot think of what I have lost. I cannot.

My eyes are open.

He is there.


	3. Chapter 3

I ask if there was a point to trying.

They tell me not to be so dramatic.

Each thought, nestled in my mind, slipping and sliding among each other, no end in sight. No destination. They giggle in those waterfall melodies that come from knocking into each other. Little droplets of thought. Comprising an ocean, roaring in my ears. _Don't be so dramatic._ I see.

All these terrible thoughts, all this terrible life - life? - and together, my brain makes them up.

"Is there a point to trying?" I ask.

 _Don't be so dramatic._

 _I was not speaking to you._ It is short, crass. No more of the lily-voiced murmurs I usually reserve for my thoughts, my notions. They are different now. Unorganised. What monster does not recognise their own children?

"Is there a point to trying?" I attempt, again. This time, I suspect it is aloud. The evidence enforcing this abduction mainly originates from the manner in which the sturdy man ahead, head bowed over the mantelpiece, turns. There are lines upon his face similar to the ones I feel beneath my fingers - scattered, shallow, ssssssighing.

"You'll hurt your back," he says.

I cannot be compelled to place a sole finger upon my chin in rumination, but I ruminated upon his suggestion nonetheless. I even attempted to imagine the finger upon my chin, to complete the picture anyhow (the 'real world' and mental one are no separate terms), but I could not locate the entrance to my imagination anywhere among the fog. To tell you the truth… be as it may… I cannot see a thing. I feel that I have become blind. All I can feel is smog in my brain, fog permeating every corner of my mind, pressing the surface of my brain against the surface of my skull. It is like… I can only be bid entrance to my own mind if I leave my eyes behind. Now all I have to rely upon is pushing blindly through the fog, but it is impenetrable. Where can I find the entrance? Where can I find anything?

"It is backbreaking work," I assuage. It is important, I have learned, to maintain conversation when one has begun it. And by important, I mean an optional procedure for social lubrication. This talk of importance is often a flippantly-used term for things not necessarily very important. However, in the presence of a man who believes such things as important (I would assume - note that this is a proletariat stereotype), the optional use of an optional method suddenly appears a lot less optional that an option would typically opt to be.

"I meant your position."

"Yes. It is… a difficult position. Backbreaking work… is there a point… to… trying?"

"I mean your back, Sherlock. For someone who reckons they're so literal…" He trails off. It is worse than pausing.

I am indeed lying upon the couch in much the same manner as I have been dominating it for the past… days. I cannot collect the strength to move. I do not feel compelled. In fact, I am not sure if this man did me a service in reminding me that I was indeed lying on a couch. I had forgotten. But now his voice calls me back to the immediate world, the 'real world', and I will have to fight to get back into my mind. And even that endeavour will not do me much good: it seems blind men feel more. The mind is a place for rationality, for clearcut precision; not for new emotion to come prying in, bent to undo whatever architecture there is left in my skull.

"Just try to move a bit."

"Your… qualifications as an… MD…" It is my turn to trail off. I deplore it: oh, how that makes my gut wrench! There was something in my mind, something about being overprotective, some medical analogy, but it has disappeared into the fog. Now it will float about and eventually rest somewhere, clutter up some place, categorise itself in a place it is not meant to be! There is something abuzz on the underside of my throat, something hot and tingling.

Within the mental womb, I did not really have to see. I did not have to feel. Sensory input was for the external, was for the place were ordinary people roam, where the commonplace can be transformed into the extraordinary and only I would know; only I would observe. But inside my mind, where I was safe and capable and myself… it was different. It was me.

 _Don't be so dramatic._

 _You would know,_ I whisper. _You would know if you were them. If you were the thoughts from before._

 _Don't be so dramatic._

 _Please stop. Please go away._

 _Don't be so dramatic._

"Please," I whisper. I shut my eyes, tight. But I focus on the cracks beneath my fingers. The lighter air pressing against my eyelids. The man's presence just beyond. I do not want to steal back into my mind. I do not want to face it. I do not want to work. I cannot. I cannot work against it. It will break me. I do not wish to be broken.

 _Don't be so dramatic._

"Sherlock, I'm concerned."

"Don't be."

 _So dramatic._

* * *

"Will you ever move from that position?"

His voice is marbled by fog. Swirls and tendrils of the stuff leak about the room, but barely any coincide with my ears.

"I do not… expect so," I whisper. The origin of that response is unbeknownst to me. It was born on my tongue. I did not view it transpire in my mind; I did not create it in little brush strokes of my mentality. When those words were flung to the air, flitting off, not looking back despite my looking forth, I looked upon their occurrence for the first time. Perhaps somewhere in that fog, something was being formed, but I did not feel it. So I doubt it. I cannot. I cannot. Since when did I place so much emphasis on feeling? All I can access in my mind is pressing my hands against the ballooning pressure of the fog, that dense softness, sponging the twitches of my hands.

With their backs to me, I consider those words, and yes, I do not expect so. I do not know whether I can move from this position. This place in life (life?), this place in time, this _place._ This state of mind… how can I move from this position? To move from point A to point B, some exertion is involved; some spent effort. Effort! Oh. How can I move from this position? I do not have the energy to face my mind. Oh, how I would love to pick through it, deconstruct it, put it back together! But I cannot. Oh, I cannot. I cannot even move from this couch; how on earth would I pick apart my own mentality?

"You really should move. You've been there for days." A pause. A sigh. Is it a sigh, or a squall of air huffed by his armchair as it suddenly accommodates his sturdy frame? Another attempt. The words, not the sitting - if it is that. I am still uncertain on the subject. "You'll get sores." I would be able to abduce it in a second, if I were myself. Myself… oh, how I miss him. How I… miss… What is this emphasis on feeling?

"I… cannot move - from this… position," I breathed. The dust upon the couch at my mouth unlatched their feelers and threw themselves off the cliff-face of leather. _Sores. I am bereft. Why should I care for corporeal harm? The body is only perceived by the mind, anyhow, and that puts all stakes to a dead end._ I suppose the dust particles settled upon the shrubbery of carpet, but they had undertaken themselves beyond direct line of sight and, with the waterfall of the couch edge blocking my line of sight, negligible fabric fuzz had to substitute. I had time, however, to appreciate the caustic testimony: the very couch upon which I was gaoled due to mental catastrophe blocks vision, an element of my former function that I was fascinated by. The ideals that I could invent, the objectives I could envision, the possibilities I could imagine, all set upon that sunlight stage: sight. Established there, branching off from there, becoming something far more reaching and indeed, employing methods beyond the menial medium of seeing: but as dutiful children thank dutiful parents, I remembered where my roots were. If only I could access the memory bank which held my origins, my roots, perhaps I could attempt to rebuild what I once was! But I cannot. I cannot. And indeed… would I want to?

That engenders a petrifying thought. Would I re-engineer an architecture that cracks and bends and falls apart before I perceive a seam? Would I dare to outreach to a whole different building, one that would take again decades to design? But all of this is irrelevant. Petty daydreaming - if I could see a thing of what I am thinking of. All I could do is lie upon this couch, breathe in this dust, and cannot move from this position.

"Come on. Move."

"I cannot."

"Sherlock!"

"I cannot."

"Why not?" His voice is heated. Temperature pertains to voices. Sometimes, when I was quiet and somewhat content (content?), my mind would adopt a lukewarm nature. Like being submerged in a silky, tropical lake. The water slips over your skin as if it is laced with soft. You are suspended, but it is not dense. You can move anyplace with ease, as if swimming through air, soft slipping over you, lukewarm. You could move from your position.

"I simply… cannot," I whisper, although there is nothing simple about it; or perhaps there is, for there is a sole thing, and that is that I cannot.

The man, in all his gruff encouragement, has proved to be thoroughly unfascinating. There is nothing in me left to be fascinated, but I suppose that is not the sole reason for this. He often sits in an armchair not far from me. In his occupancy of it, this particular furniture has become inaugurated into the small group of elements that I am aware of - joining the couch and the man, but excluding the contents of my mind. Everything else seems to be shrouded in fog; not that I can see anything else. But the feelers of my senses stretch out, and that is all I can see. And I try to envision where I am, but of course; I cannot see in my mind either. Indeed, I am quite blind, and it is no assistance that my eyes are tightly closed. It may appear, from the uninitiated (which is all but I), that I am subject to a tumultuous migraine. I wish I were. Oh, if only I were! I wish it were as arduously, in the faint ghost of ardour of one void of emotion, as a frostbite patient praying for the pricking pain of circulation. But I cannot feel a thing. Only the fog. The cotton-wool pressure of the fog. It is not even cold. Nor lukewarm. It has no temperature.

It is perhaps worth noting to myself that the man seems more present than my own body. Of myself, all I can feel is the exterior front of my mind and the gentle pressure of my shutter eyelids upon each other, the delicate splay of eyelashes on the fraction of skin of which I am aware.

"I've got food for you," I hear. There is a dim clatter, somewhere out in the grey. It echoes a little, then gives. The fog dissipates a little by my face as the sound falls through it towards the carpet bulrushes. Another shard of awareness. The eyelashes twitch a little: the skin itches negligibly. Would I have the strength to raise my hand, to touch it, if irritation transpired? If I could feel my arms, would they emulate lead? Or a pure emptiness devoid of all strength, all power?

"Your hand is twitching again." His voice is closer, but no less clear. He speaks from behind a thickset wall. "I put food out. Just near your mouth. Don't have to do a thing."

The eyelashes twitch again. Does the hand mirror it? Why is my hand twitching?

"Sherlock, are you okay? Open your eyes."

I cannot. I cannot reach that food. I cannot open my eyes. I cannot feel where they are. I cannot do a thing. I have no strength. I cannot feel. What is this emphasis on feeling? Why can I not feel inside my mind? I want to see. I want to see what has happened. Please let me back into my mind.

"You're trembling! Sherlock, open your eyes! Open them!"

And just as I could feebly feel those eyelids, those eyelashes, they vanished from my awareness. All that is left is the couch, the armchair, the man. If I could feel them, would they be leaden? What is this emphasis on feeling? They shifted from their position in my straitened perception, and now I cannot move their position; I cannot rise those shutters; I cannot quaver those lashes. If I were to dare to say it, for fear of crossing a line, I would say —

"Open!"

I cannot.


	4. Chapter 4

I am very disheartened. I am not sure if there is any other word for it. Well, of course there would be other words for it. Multitudes of words. A plethora. See? I can form words for that. But I cannot think of another word for this. I can no longer chance the abyss of my mind, no longer swim their cerulean depths, and it disheartens me. How disheartening. I have been reliably informed that I don't have one.

See, there was once a time in which I believed I could achieve something in one fell swoop. I thought I could write screenplays in a couple of sittings. I thought I could understand mathematical phenomena in a few minutes. I thought… I thought… oh, I thought! How treasured would that thought be now? What kind of treasure?

But now, I cannot even sit at work for a short period of time, let alone an extended. Nor stand, nor loll. I cannot. And if I could… if I forced myself, bones aching, heart screaming, submerging myself into the icy waters, swimming with ice, of a mind that was once womb-warm, amniotic; I would simply sit there, forcing, frozen, deadened, unable to think. I cannot. I cannot. I hate it. I hate mys— no. I am reluctant to say that. I cannot.

I take sour breaks. I take wonder freights. I take bower waits. I take mates. There are mates out there, I know, but they cannot slow the way I am. The way I've been. The way I see.

Is there a way to do anything? Anything at all? I almost cried today. I had nothing in me and yet I still felt like crying. I could do nothing. I used to be splendid and I can do nothing. I was wonderful. I possessed wonderful gifts. Amazing things. I was going to be marvelled at, but not let anyone marvel. That would have been my trademark. I used to be mysterious, but now I am isolated. Like the stereotypical spinster. Locked away from my husband, beyond the veil of marriage and of death. Where did my gifts go? Where did they go?

I had never really perceived them as gifts. I just thought of them as… there. A part of me. Something indispensable. What has happened to them now? Should I kill mys—

No. I cannot think that. I cannot. I cannot. It would be a line crossed.

But, when all is said and perhaps not done, of course, the fact remains. By fact, I state that loosely; I pride myself upon the sheaving of facts, but that leaves several points open to question. What really is fact? How can I strip it to its core essentials, to cut away the trails that unbalance my search, so that I may know precisely what remains? How can I know? How can I know? Why do I repeat myself? Is there any other way to fill the gap buzzing white in my mind, that blank space, that _ooooooh nooooo_ what on earth shall I do? I doubt that I would even be able to find my way back to that research, that leafy branch of realisation with berries glistening like gems of knowledge - it nests in my mind somewhere - or more likely yet, floats free, coming apart from each other and mingling with other areas, nigh unrecoverable in this stagnant state of no-effort. Does it even exist anymore? How would I know that it exists anymore? Does it? Tell me! But how could I know? I don't know fact. I cannot access the branch of fact. Oh, _no,_ please…

"Sherlock? You're moaning again."

I stop. It is simpler to do so when someone is present.

"Thank you," I respond, murmuring it into the leather of the couch. It would be less productive if he inquired into the facts of the matter, and although the notion of gratitude (or indeed emotion) seems void now, I conjure societal necessity. I would be grateful, therefore I provide evidence that I am. (There seems to be a part of me majorly comprised of 'would'. What would I be? What was I before? What would I do? I am no longer who I once was - who is really me - and I cannot be who I am - for I am who I once was. Sometimes, I look into the mirror and see only grey fog shrouding my face.)

"Why are you moaning?"

"I am… no longer grateful," I inform him, to strengthen the position that I am capable of some feeling. His voice is quite muffled, as is speaking through a wall, a faulty speaker. He may be a faulty speaker himself - I resolve to be more tolerant.

"You need to be more tolerant," he says, confirming my suspicions. "About yourself. You seem to be having a hard time. Why don't you just give yourself a break?"

"All… I have been doing… is taking breaks!" My words sound a bit acidic. I marvel at it marginally, as much I can manage (and draining myself further in the process, somehow); it is a pleasant surprise that even marginal marvelling is possible: a ghost of the marvelling I would have done. Would. Would have. I am.

But it is true. All I have been doing is taking breaks. One long, high, horrible -

I feel almost like crying. I am to cry. Am I to cry? I do not wish to cry. I have no pricks at the back of eyes. No lump in throat. None of the characteristic signs documented so naively in novels. There is merely an empty basin in my chest, and some tears collecting at the bottom, travelling together to the lowest point, gravity signing its statement. And they slide without resistance to my eyes. There is nothing to stop them. No pride, no dignity, no intellect. My entire mind is clogged empty of value, of meaning, and thus is my body. I cannot. I cannot. I cannot stop them. Oh, _no,_ please…

"Sherlock? You're moaning again."

I stop. It is easier to do so when someone is present.

* * *

I am stressed, oh so stressed, and I haven't a clue why.

I have nought to do. No thoughts to think. My brain is the lowest capacity it has ever been. The solid mass residing in my head, even more solid now it is filled with dense fog, rather than the wonderful, gaslit highways racing around and through with no weight to speak of. If only I could speak of.

"A bit louder, Sherlock."

John is perched next to me. My eyes are open. They are taut open, now; it is as if several strings are pulling them high, until my eyelids cannot twitch or blink. My brain is tired, oh so tired, but my eyes are wide open. My brain is filled with heavy fog, but my eyes are clear enough. The room is still filled with cloud, but I can make out the tendrils. I can see their greyish folds moving and mixing, teasing each other; those tendrils, those swirls, right up until they lap over the shoulders and right-angle legs of the man. Yes, indeed, I realise; the man is sitting beside me. Some distance still exists between us; I suppose etiquette catches his chair legs from sliding too far along the carpet. But, a question, drained of all interest: why were my eyes drawn to the shaping, shifting fog, which coloured the scene the same grey, palette hues, bunkered at the edge of my line of sight (I cannot move my head; it is heavy; I cannot feel it much), when the man sat in front of me, affronting me, with clothes donning brighter colours, human presence drawing discomfort, dominant occupancy of perceived space? Why were my eyes drawn to the grey?

"Your… clothes… are loud enough," I croak out. Something is scratchy, impure. It sounds like it came through the opposite wall. Was it my voice? What is a voice? I cannot speak; I cannot speak what I wish; I cannot attach my brain to my mouth - the words simply spill out, and I learn what is said at approximately the same stage as everyone else. Me, the individual who learns all things valuable and necessary far before anyone else, far before the curtain has even risen! Me…

A small laugh. Or perhaps he shifted in his chair. Perhaps a chair leg caught on carpet and it huffed as he did. Perhaps both occurred. Perhaps they do not even share the same sound. I would not know. I cannot access… what I need. I _need_ it. I need it back. Please…

I am stressed, oh so stressed, and I haven't a _clue_ why. I thrive upon clues. _I_ clue. It's a clue. A clue. But I haven't a clue. I have something I need to do… I _need_ to do… it is as if there is something to be done, something that _needs_ to be done, but I cannot bring myself to care, to be bothered. The fog, oh, the fog, external and internal… I cannot reach in and take passion, take intrigue, take what I _need,_ oh, if only I could realise what is to be done, and if only I could carry it out with vigour, like old times!

"You've been like this for days. I'm worried."

Days. Old times. It feels like… old times. Not days. I am old. I feel… so old. Like my heart is so strained and withered, like leather being stretched too far until it develops little ripples and cracks, like beneath my fingers, the couch beneath my fingers, and I run my fingers over those ripples and cracks and I close my eyes. The strings have gone. They departed like vigour, like valiance, like vivacity. I am oh, so, tired, and oh, so, stressed, and my heart is not so much taut and trembling but making itself small among solid walls of pressure on all sides, making itself oh, so, small, so that it may not be crushed until it is taut, and trembling, and oh, so.

John is gone. Before my eyelids shutter into alignment, a symmetry made strange by all the disorder - perhaps they are not aligned; perhaps there is a crooked nature, a half-moon curvature, a lastly twitch generating a little dip here and there - it would figure - I noted one thing, one thing that does not need to be noted, for how else would I note it? How else would I, barred from my place, be able to realise it, however dimmed, however blurred it all may be? It is like the way the words dribble from my mouth; it is a reaction, a twitch; the last pitch of dying nerves. What I saw was the man, or, more specifically, his absence.

There is something in the air, I tasted, that seems to indicate that hours had passed. I am stressed. I am worn. How did hours pass in the space of a few seconds? I have things to do - things I _need_ \- how did hours pass, and how have I done nothing? I cannot. I cannot even move, and yet there is that tingling, nauseating mass lodged in my gut, sending signals into my chest, pulling the pressure around a little tighter with each contraction of muscle, and although I do not move, this mass does, it ripples and seethes, and my heart contracts around contracting muscle, and I cannot contract myself to move and stop and work the tightness and apprehension out, I cannot bunch myself around my stomach in an undignified ball to ease its leverage, I cannot, oh, so, cannot.

Why was my focal point on the fog? Why was it not on the man, working on perceiving him, working on _something_ (but that I cannot do)? I would have seen something different, _something_ , I need that, something different from all that hubbub and hustle and hassle, those terrible woes, why is that I cannot see the way to be, oh, the way to be? Is the fog so immediate and important to me, so dominant in this terrible, drastic circumstance, that my eyes are drawn to their corners to follow its movements rather than the still attentiveness of a man who… cares? Oh, I wish I could care. That man; he does not know what he possesses. If only I could care. One would name me self-absorbed, to claim this outlook. That I should be grateful for this stranger, whose periodic speaking and food-offering does little good. But this man! He does not know what he flaunts in my face (in fact, I am only now realising it, and a little flustered at that)! (I would have known at a glance, if I had been me, but the fog took that with the house.) If only I could care… oh, if only… not care in the simpering, whimpering, allegedly limbering way, but simply some _vigour,_ some need to _bother_ about something, and take myself to work. To place work someplace and then take myself there. Preferably within my mind. _Please_ within my mind. I want to go home.


	5. Chapter 5

There was a time. A time in time. A place in time. Is there a difference?

"There's a fog," I whisper. A fog in time. A fog in place. Is there a difference?

"A fog?" His voice. It is in time. In time to the clicking of time gone by. I feel it going by, but I cannot stop it. I feel I should start doing something, some aching need brewing under my skin, but there is no strength beneath it; it has no integrity; and I have no strength enough to satisfy it, however shallow it may be. I, lying down, doing nothing, working to satisfy all the weakness and pain in this time and place (it is all the work I can do), unable to satisfy something shallow. Something. In time and place.

"Can you speak, now?" The man must be beside me. He must be nearby. He sounds far away, but so do I, to myself; but I know that I am in immediate proximity to myself - I see it sometimes, when I open my eyes - so he must be, as well.

"Don't… get as close… as I am… to me…" I croak out. A precursor to precaution. All I want is to be safe. But all I can be is safe from contact, safe from presence, safe from the time and place of another (another?) human being. Safe… since when did I wish that I was safe? I would high-tail through streets with high tails of coat flying behind me as I flew down further roads. I would bury myself so deep in the tissues of my mind that it was a precarious thing, wondering if I would be able to get out. Mostly, I did not wish to… but I cannot think about that now… oh, I cannot…

Those notions are so vague, distant, now. I cannot grasp a memory, not even a snapshot of the event; I cannot gain access back even into the outer reaches of my mind. Oh, it has that flimsy, echoey nature, as if it never happened; as if it simply poorly-yielded imagination.

"But it did happen," I whisper, in a sore effort to make it permanent. I clench my eyes shut tighter, until periphery wrinkles deepen and scrape against each other to a painful point. Since when did external happenings have such an influence on the internal state?

"No, I didn't." He seems further away. Is he closer? What is his place at this time? "I won't get close to you, if you don't want me to."

The internal state is supposed to be sovereign. It is meant to be omnipotent, omnipresent. Superior to the outside. That is all I am. Alone protects me. I could sit inside my mind and be safe. My thoughts were supposed to be gospel; why is it now my words? Why is it external over internal now? Why has everything turned upside-down, illogical?

I was safe. Even when I was hightailing through streets, wrapping unarmed arms around armed criminals, I was safe. I was safe in my mind. My mind was safe. Indestructible. An infallible architecture. Even when I was on the outside, sprinting down a street, engaging my senses as if my life (life?) depended upon it, my mind would always be there. It would always be there to come home to. I was so safe, so secure; even while scouting danger, skirting the periphery of demise (demise?), I was safe. My mind was there. Oh, it was there. There.

And now, it is there. But that is even worse, for I cannot break in. Why should I have to break in? I do not have the strength. Even if I could break in, what would I find? Would I have the strength to put it all back together? Would I want t— no. If I do not have the strength to _want_ a mind, _my mind,_ my home, then— I cannot think about that either. I refuse. (I cannot. As if I have strength to decline.)

But it is regardless. I am on the external of the internal. I am out of my mind.

What do I do? Stay stranded out here in the cold? I want warm, I want _lukewarm._

I am on a short fuse. There is a taste of congealed, rotten saliva all through my mouth. There is a tap-dance of heartbeats in my chest and waters rising within it, silty half-waters that are partially curdled liquid and stale air. It pushes me, snaps at me, generates an ill, trembling drone just beneath the skin, its vibrations permeating all through my chest. It demands that I do something, and something short, and something quickly accomplished, and easily accomplished, for how else can someone of my weak calibre truly accomplish anything? But I cannot. I don't have the _strength! I don't have the strength!_ I scream at myself, but it only comes out as a whisper, _of course._ Only the shivering disquiet beneath the skin gave the illusion of possessing enough energy to convert into a louder voice; even in thought.

"My poor… chest…" I whisper.

"Your chest? Like, your heart?"

"No… need to flout… your qualifications in this area…" I rasped back. He is an M.D., but he has none, of course. His brain, I daresay, has as much fog as the day he was born. "You know… nothing else…" I wheeze in addition, as clarification.

"Thanks." His voice appeared laced more with pique than illumination. The notion fluttered away before I could reach out and grasp it; my arms stayed by their sides; would I be able to contain it once I had taken it in? I no longer have the strength to investigate even thoughts. I no longer have the strength to… _investigate._ Investigate. My investigation…

"My poor… head…" I whisper.

"Your head? Like, your brain?"

Silence.

"Do you want some water? I'll get you some water. Good for a headache."

It is not something external that will assist this internal. Sure, it may enter, but it shall be stopped before the same breach that I am akin to: that spongy brick about the place I… hold dear.

He has returned. He is close. But his external place cannot soothe my internal, terrified time. I do not feel safe.

* * *

I am locked within a landscape; a paragraph of ooze.

There are cracks along my fingers, but not along the couch. They have strayed from that point. No; it is my skin, withering away; it is the life (life?) beneath my skin - withering - away. I cannot move my head (containing my brain) enough to check. But it feels that way. Feels that way! Since when must I rely upon how I feel, however more rational that method of feeling may be? And yet, I cannot feel the cracks along the couch; those cracks that resembled the laboratory ceiling. I cannot feel them… I must… since when did I condemn myself to feel?

(That day under the laboratory ceiling.)

There was fog about… fog within… but no fog above.

(That day under the laboratory ceiling.)

I remember the day I met the man. The man who always seems to be around, these days. Whether I close or open my eyes. When I _can_ open my eyes. The more accurate description would be when the strings return, and my eyelids are forced open of their own accord. But he seems to be omnipresent. As my mind used to be. But he is far less complex; far less interesting; far less where my home is.

(That day under the laboratory ceiling.)

He was somewhat interesting, I profess. But that was in the days in which my mind was running without glitch nor catch. What interesting notions I had abduced in relation to his sturdy persona is now locked away in another landscape, a different world. I cannot access it. I am locked out. So all he is to me now is a presence, without background, without knowledge, without notion.

It was (that day under the laboratory ceiling) the most beautiful place he had ever seen. That person from before, with that mind - that detective, who before, was me. The laboratory was so white, but I cannot quite picture it now, for no memories arise: they are locked away, and I am locked out. All I can see are the black of my eyelids, all in opposition of the place I desire to be. The most beautiful place I had ever seen.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" The words float to me. Out of nowhere. Akin to the fog. Quite like the fog. Is it the fog? _Afghanistan or Iraq?_ Did that bring on the fog? It is as good a guess as any. For I must guess. I have nothing much to go by. All my material is locked away. Could I locate it, anyway, in the fog? Fancy that, a detective, perceiving guesses along a vast, lined-up equilibrium rather than the differential problem-solving of the mathematical dance I would savour, if I did enjoy, if I did cause myself to feel. But now I am driven to feel, for I am blind, and I cannot open my eyes. Perhaps I could fight it - perhaps I could scramble for a sliver of who I once was, to push aside the _feeling,_ the _emotion,_ the _sensation,_ in all its methods and forms (that day under the laboratory ceiling), but where is the strength? How can I do anything, when drifting into my own mind was the most effortless thing to my possession, simpler than twitching a finger? And inside, upon the internal, there is an encompassment of home. A rhapsody of intellect, lukewarm as a blanket against the external. There is no time; there is no place.

But here, right now, is certainly a place; a time. Nowhere I wish to be. Oh, I wish I could move on. How can I move from this position? The man sometimes suggests movement. A walk. Dinner. Speaking. His efforts have faded out (which sounds familiar); perhaps he has relented; perhaps given up (which sounds famili— have I given— wait). Have I given up? Is this what entails giving up? I did not actively choose this (or did I? How can you review the processes your mind took before this occurred?). But I would not reduce myself to this (would you not? How do you know?). That is not what I feel (feel?), what little remnant of myself survives bedridden in the nostalgia and self-loathing that stews in my lower gut, answered. It writhes, quiet and constant, and seethes when I pay attention to it, as if to convince me that it is seething all the time. Even my self-destruction takes shortcuts. Even it gives up. What gives immunity to the notion that I would not have chosen this for myself?

But there is yet something in me that whispers, croaks, rasps, that I couldn't. I cannot.

"Sherlock?"

His voice again. I do not open my eyes. If only I had the choice. Then it would be a better event, to me. This is relative, of course (although must be made explicit to people such as… me).

"You're okay. Come on. Don't start trembling again."

If only I had the choice. Am I… the same as everyone else now? Has everyone got this fog? Have they simply learned to live with it?

"Sherlock, I know you can hear me. Just… twitch your finger or something."

My finger? If I had the choice to even twitch my finger, I would place it back upon the cracks along the couch. Then I would be reminded, however dolefully, of (that day under the laboratory ceiling). The cracks along the (ceiling), the spindly little cracks that decorated the final days of my wonderful mind. The mind once treasured and now taken, and once taken for granted. If I had the choice to even twitch my finger, I would have the simpler mechanism of entering my mind. If that were to occur, I would once again see a beautiful place external, from an internal of no time or place.

It is (that day), in a retrospection clearer than all else, clouded less by the fog that lurks my every moment; more vivid than the other snatches of memory that are spilled involuntarily behind my eyelids, rather than the choice of actively retrieving them - they mock me in doing so; in (that day) with cracks upon the ceiling echoing ( _"Afghanistan or Iraq?"_ comes the resound) those upon my fingers, which I cannot twitch. It is (that day) — I digress: that day under the laboratory ceiling, the day I met the man.

"John."

"Yes, Sherlock?" He is at my side. He is immediacy, in this aching state of sluggish perception. He is solidity, when the trembling call for spent, gratified action compresses in surroundrance of my heart.

"Look at me," I rasp out, almost indecipherably. (The cipher of my mind; yellow; infected.) Under the laboratory ceiling, he was staring at me. Taken aback, perhaps verging upon astounded, by my observations; my mind. I… miss that. Terribly. What am I now? Can I look at myself now? I miss the way — oh, it hurts terribly — I miss the way I could —

"Observe."


	6. Chapter 6

There seems to be nothing indeed to do. I blurry-recall the time in which I perched myself upon a stool in the laboratory, enough to remain avert and alert; the swapping of the crystallised colours through a device which lets me see better. My eyes used to be the instruments through which I devise high rationality: but now, the lens is foggy, I suppose. I can only suppose. I cannot produce high rationality.

There seems to be nothing indeed to occur. I have not a clue where John is situated. A _clue,_ which I do not have. The clue I cannot see through foggy lens. I cannot feel (feel!) his presence: he must have left the room – but why stop there? Why not leave the entire flat? Perhaps he has left the entire flat, and left me here, vulnerable, attacked by my internal, able to be attacked from the external as my internal lies dying, and so will my external, I am afraid, now that my internal cannot protect it from external attackers! How could he leave me like this? Splayed, unmoving, susceptible, and if an external attacker would arrive, externally indifferent to my fate? The only movement there would be would be blood dripping onto the couch, the carpet, the craft of my existence collapsed and dust.

What to do? What to be? What to occur? But, indeed, I wonder how all this migrated to a point that I even realised that another person was out of the room, or in the room, or even meant to be in the room. _Meant_ to be in the room? Since when does this man have a place here – apart from a place to live; but finances do not come into it; oh no; they do not. He has no place here. Not near me. I should be able to ignore him effortlessly, in a typical state, and go about my business, my work. Oh, but no! Now I have regressed (regressed? Oh, no – regressed!?) to a point at which I feel (feel?)... vulnerable? Indeed not! I cannot. I cannot. Indeed.

And when John returns, in eventuality, I shall lie and lie, in my stationary state, my motionless measure, but I will indeed not lie when he leans down and breathes to me, as if I were a corpse, as if there were people (people!) impatient and disturbed in a line behind him, inching towards the open coffin, and he breathes to me his secret, or his reassurance, or his condolences, or all three, and he whispers, "How are you feeling?"

But I do not lie when I whisper, on the contrary to his own efforts, nothing. However compromised by the cliché of emotion that may sound, I presume that it is as severed from emotion as can be. There was a time (although my conceptualisation of time, at this time, is subpar at exceptional) during which I could perch myself upon a stool in a laboratory, avert and alert, and peer through crystal lens to crystallised colours, and derive wonders from clear rationality. The colours themselves were not marvellous, but the rationality, oh, the rationality (the rationality!) through which I could see clear and crystal, my eye upon crystal and bracingly clear. That was the peak of excluding emotional attachment from my existence – indeed, it did not exist – not to me – and therefore it did not. And now, even when all is collapsed and dust, the omission of emotional attachment is still there. It has not so much endured: more so, the comprehensive lack of emotion was destroyed during the collapse, and the scream of its splintering architecture was lost amid the silence of the entire breakdown (breakdown?). What is left, out of unknowing nature rather than rigid formation, is a heavy, drained lack of emotional attachment: indeed, merely being severed from it, in an unbuilt act and a piece of good luck that I haven't the emotion to treasure.

But here I am, lying upon this leather couch with my fingers strayed from the cracks, akin to the laboratory ceiling, and I no longer have the lens beneath the laboratory ceiling, I no longer am the person beneath the laboratory ceiling, and no longer feel the man beneath the laboratory ceiling: that man: that man: that man. He has left this room, and left this flat, perhaps, for how long? What is my conceptualisation of time? He could have disappeared for days. Or perhaps an hour. Is an hour not a common measure of time here? Perhaps he is gone an hour. That sounds neutral. I require a constant. I used to be able to control them, very carefully, meticulously, while peering through the microscope, those crystal lens. Oh, meticulous. Meticulous! How I yearn to be meticulous again, in that empty, detached yearn derived from the severed good luck I cannot cherish. But I used to be able to control, oh, control, to control the shifting movement of my mind, to chase the shifting movement of the fog, to reach inside and take something, that meticulous something that I may control, that tiny fraction which I can see clearly through the microscope lens –

Was it a small thing, then, that set all this off? That splintered architecture and engineered collapse and dust? Is it a crack in the lens, a microscopic crack, that caused the entire object to blur? I would be able to locate the crack, if I could. I could identify it. Perhaps I could even set about to remedy it. If I had the knowledge – the knowledge, if I could see it, identify it, deduce it. But I would need a microscope to see such a microscopic crack. But I simply stated then: there is a crack in the lens. It is broken, blurred; filled with fog. I would be able to see it if my rationality, my mind, my lens, still stood intact: but if they were, there would be nothing to see. Indeed, I cannot. I cannot see. Either I see the darkness of my eyelids, or the greyness of the fog.


	7. Chapter 7

I have decided to move slowly, yet carefully. I theorise that if I move a little, then eventually, I will be able to move an aggregate lot. It seems that I have been avoiding this, in hindsight, relatively simple measure on the basis of raw impatience, arising from no practice with patience, arising from thinking at breakneck speed in contrast to this plod-a-plod setting. Patience engenders endurance, and how can I endure such an action if it takes far too long? Far better to, as the impulsivity that floats apart from my mind and spills quite a lot of itself onto my actions and larynx, simply lie there, practicing a practically equal result in all practicality with luxuriantly less effort. The lack of effort seems more valuable to me than the result – indeed, lack of effort may be a result in itself, and a wonderful one, I am convinced. Often, I rue it, but now, it is what I do. Others may go about their tedious business and tend to their illusion of productivity but I, oh, I shall lie here and know with unprecedented clarity in this particular period of time, oh, I shall know that I achieve about the same as the average soul, and I am merely lying. Truly and merely. For it is all mere. That is the hint about your success; mere, mere, mere. What an arrogant ratio, to give me this superiority, and the knowledge to appreciate it! Indeed, it would be quite tasty if it were not built on a comparison with other people, which is _not_ so decadent, and I shan't indulge myself, for it is a sour dish with no luxury: interpersonal comparison is a commonplace endeavour.

But the fact (fact?) remains that I have decided to move – slowly, yet (yet) carefully. This assumption arose to me at some point during this period, probably recently – my conceptualisation of time is quite unclear, as is all (all?). John was in the kitchen, or at least he claimed to have been when he visited me. I was able to produce a wavering image of a room with some dimension, perhaps the greyish structure of a counter, and further brass-coloured, blurred shapes hovering some feet off the ground – shelves, John mentioned shelves, but I thought that his teacups were varicoloured? The dishevelled state that my consciousness seemed to be in seemed to sink, with this simple proof that I am not who I am, and indeed who is to say that I ever was who I am, or if I was who I am, or if there is an I am, or an I, at any point? But that involves far too much systematic thinking, working through each question – and further questions cropping up from that; it is truly an avalanche once you get going; but since when am I afraid of information and its consequences? – and I simply cannot, and it would only bring more proof that I cannot, and in the end, who is to say that what I am is a cannot?

I cannot do a thing. I cannot focus. I may have just phased out for a while. Or was I procrastinating? Who shall know (know)? And indeed, I must say: I had decided to move. I made the decision. Whether I possess the stamina or endurance to go through with it is a matter for the matter that moves, which does not matter and indeed that is why I must move, for to lie is to be superior and commit to the relatively same work with relatively (in a different state) lower effort, and that is why I must move for what a commonplace ideal that is! But however commonplace it is does not alone spur me into movement – oh no, it does not. I lounge on a couch and cannot think; is that not a commonplace event among the masses, so commonplace that they have integrated it into their everyday? No, something inspired me, and inspired me in a way that felt bland and robotic and not at all inspired, not the way I used to be, if, in fact, I were an I.

For John had just returned from the kitchen, the place with the brass splodges hovering at shoulder-height, for me if I were to stand, but not for John for he is quite shorter, and John had just returned from the kitchen. He asked if I wanted to talk a walk, as usual, or have a bite to eat (his verbiage; I shan't take credit – that would disgust me further), or a cup to drink (need I point out to you that he refers to fluid within in spite of poor syntactical grasp? Probably so), and then he spoke of medicine. That is the label that I put upon this particular one-sided conversation, as I can only detect opaque shifting beyond that marker, and can recall nothing (nothing?) else.

But then I remembered – remembered! – that his hand twitched. In the… laboratory. With the steam marks and cancer spots on the ceiling. His hand twitched. It twi-twi-twitched. Just a little movement. Nothing (nothing?) more. Twi-twi-twi-twi-twi-twi—

He was frightened when I mirrored him. I was not even aware that I mirrored him. How was I not aware? I, the Napoleon of observation? Was it a sign? Was that the beginning…? I should have been frightened; not he. Why would he be frightened?

 _He spoke of medicine. You thought of twitching – nay, you remembered. He was frightened later, the medical man._ The only link that appears to me is drug addiction. Twi-twi-twi, the scrape of the latch against the lighter, sparks a flame, just a spark, just a small thing, but was it not the small thing, the spark, that set all this off? The small, unobserved thing that caused the architecture to come tumbling down? _You do not know. That is a blatant assumption from the musing without evidence that originated before. Since when do you mix up these kinds of things?_ It is nigh difficult to mix them up, indeed, as I do have no (no?) evidence. But I managed it. But it is a twitch. A small thing. I am a small thing. A small event. My lying down does not matter, my movement does not matter, and neither do I, which I always (always?) knew, so it is a small thing, a small event (small?). But thereby: the twitch. It occurred. And John was frightened. And it is a small movement, ever so small, and it made a medical man frightened, but I would give untold amounts (for I shall not tell you) to be able to have that twitch back. For then I would be able to move; however small I may be. (I?)

Perhaps, then, the course of action – indeed, action! I have always (always?) relied upon mentality, which is, in its own course, action, I suppose (since when do I suppose?) – is to twitch. Just a little. Just the twitch of the hand, to mirror John in the laboratory, where I often find myself, straining to see some vividness, to stress to imagine some clarity – and mirror myself, indeed, mirroring him, and are we not all mirrors? Perhaps a mirror may tell me who I am. (Since when do you rely upon externals?) I relent, then: it would not tell me who I am. (There you go – making assumptions again, based on musings without evidence.) I relent, then: I do not know. (I do not know! Since when –) I cannot.

But John visited, and he is visiting, indeed, he is visiting now – he just returned from the kitchen, that brassy domain. John! I ask you: why the twitch? I twitch my lips.

"John…"

There is a sound, although I cannot feel my lips move. There is only empty space that has a, with unorthodoxy, sense of numbness, a bland, opaque one that is a little swollen and shimmers a little along its curvature.

A moment. I think (think?).

"Sherlock, did you speak?" Very quietly, on both counts.

I cannot. Work up a response.

"You okay?"

I need to twitch. Make a small movement. Who knows (knows?) – perhaps I can then leap up, envigoured, and continue the everyday inconsistent with all else's everyday! (Since when do you take pride in being different from everyone else – and thus, meriting yourself based on other people; involving them in your existence?) But I am impatient. _Of course you are impatient. Did we not ascertain this… a while ago?_

"I want to be better," I whispered.

"You'll get better," he replied. His tone was unnaturally abrupt. (Unnaturally? What nature do you know of?)

There is a distinguished difference, both significant and one that I could actually discriminate. (Don't get ahead of yourself. Impatient.) _Be better. Get better. Be get. Begotten._ It is caused. I caused it. Did I cause it? Did I cause all this?

But there it is, the impatience again. _Be, get._ I want to be better; but that external figure, that form of lesser bias (since when is something on the external superior in general society's view of higher thought?), denotes that I must… _get_ there. Twi-twi-twi. I cannot.

But, wait! (I am using an exclamation mark - what illusion of vigour!) The laboratory ceiling… the spindly, spidery cracks across its surface… is this particular segment of time not centred on mirrors? What happened to the pressure of my fingers upon the cracks in the lounge, that reflected the narrow ruts in the leather? They used to rest upon them; it was a time (time?) in which I was assured that the laboratory event existed, that my mind was once whole; and then they moved. Somehow. I never got them back. I never got it back. I never… my mind has never… I want it to come back. Oh, I want it…

But they moved. Not far - only a small movement. Almost a _twitch._ Twi-twi-twi. All it takes is a twitch, and the reassurance can return. And perhaps my mind… oh, my mind… can…

Impatience. First, you must get there. You must _get_ better.

The laboratory. John. His hand twitched. His hand… twitched. And I mirror him. This is about mirrors. Since when is it about the external? Since when is John so important?

"Sherlock…" His voice is grey.

I cannot feel them. I cannot. _Twi-twi-twitch._

"Sherlock, you're twitching again. Please, stop. Stop twitching!"

No. I cannot. But this time, however poorly conceptualised that may be, it is not an act of lethargy, of hopelessness. It is a rigid and controlled one. It is a sensation I miss sorely, and it returns, oh, it _returns,_ in a faint and ghostly replica. Perhaps there can be a return. Often, I rue what I cannot do, but now I can do. I can _do._ I am inspired; a bland and robotic inspiration, but it is there. I am there; since when can I feel when I am here? But there is something beneath my fingers, the tiny spikes of narrowly torn leather, the thin, spindly cracks; and as my fingertips drag across the surface, I feel dust, which may resemble steam smudges, and small, round mould spots, all akin to the decorated overhanging of the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

"Sherlock, please stop twitching. I'm going to have to sedate you."

No, that cannot do. I lie around a plenitude as it is. I am inspired to move: it may be mere, robotic, a ghost left over from a past of illusive productivity, but it may be a small thing, a small I, that sets this off.

"No, thank you," I rasp out. It is yet a whisper. _Impatient. Do not bid me so; I try._ "I… would like… to focus on you… for a while longer…"


End file.
